CAA News Today
caa.reviews Publishes Dissertations Completed and In Progress for 2013
posted Jun 17, 2014
caa.reviews recently published the authors and titles of doctoral dissertations in art history and visual studies—both completed and in progress—from American and Canadian institutions for calendar year 2013. You may browse by listing date or by subject matter. Each entry identifies the student’s name, dissertation title, school, and advisor.
Each institution granting the PhD in art history and/or visual studies submits dissertation titles once a year to CAA for publication. The caa.reviews list also includes dissertations completed and in progress between 2002 and 2012, making basic information about their topics available through web searches.
People in the News
posted Jun 17, 2014
People in the News lists new hires, positions, and promotions in three sections: Academe, Museums and Galleries, and Organizations and Publications.
The section is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Academe
Shiben Banerji has joined the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois as assistant professor of history of architecture.
Emine Fetvaci, an associate professor of Islamic art, has earned tenure in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Boston University in Massachusetts.
Patrick Hajovsky, an assistant professor of art history who specializes in Precolumbian and colonial Latin American art, has earned tenure in the Art and Art History Department at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.
Seth Kim-Cohen has been appointed assistant professor of contemporary art history in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois.
Elena FitzPatrick Sifford has accepted the position of assistant professor of Renaissance and Baroque art at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Mechtild Widrich has joined the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois as assistant professor of contemporary art history.
Gregory Williams, associate professor of contemporary art at Boston University in Massachusetts, has received tenure in his school’s Department of History of Art and Architecture.
Museums and Galleries
Paul R. Davis, previously Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the Creative Arts of Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been appointed curator of collections at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas.
Douglas Dreishpoon has become the first chief curator emeritus at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, where he has worked since 1998.
Christine NeilsenChristine Neilsen, formerly assistant curator of late antique and Byzantine art for the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been named William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection and Director of Program Planning at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.
David Odo has left his position as Bradley Assistant Curator of Academic Affairsat the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He is now director of student programs and research curator of university collections initiatives at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Brandon RuudBrandon Ruud, previously curator of American art for the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, has been named the new Constance and Dudley J. Godfrey Jr. Curator of American Art and Decorative Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin.
Jill ShawJill Shaw, a research associate at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has accepted the position of senior curator of collections at Colgate University’s Picker Art Gallery in Hamilton, New York.
Organizations and Publications
Parme Giuntini, professor of art history and assistant chair of liberal arts and sciences at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California, has become a contributing editor to the website Art History Teaching Resources.
Kimberly James Overdevest, assistant professor of visual arts at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, has joined the website Art History Teaching Resources as a contributing editor.
Virginia Spivey, an independent art historian based in Washington, DC, has become a contributing editor to the website Art History Teaching Resources.
Institutional News
posted Jun 17, 2014
Read about the latest news from institutional members.
Institutional News is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland has received a $2,500 award from the International Fine Print Dealers Association to fund a curatorial internship in museum print collections.
The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington has launched a collections website, created with the web-based platform eMuseum. Visitors to the online resource can browse the museum’s collections, search for specific objects, view images, and create their own saved collections of work. To date, over 1,000 works of art have been photographed, catalogued, and added to the website. The museum’s entire 12,500-work collection, including the largest collection of British Pre-Raphaelite art outside the United Kingdom, will be available online by 2018.
The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, has acquired the archive documenting the first three decades of the Kitchen, a leading alternative space devoted to performance art, dance, music, and video. The large, well-preserved archive includes thousands of videotapes, audiotapes, photographs, posters, and other archival materials documenting the exhibitions, performances, and events presented by the Kitchen between 1971 and 1999.
The Harvard Art Museums—composed of the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum—will open their new Renzo Piano–designed facility to the public on November 16, 2014. The renovation and expansion of the museums’ landmark building at 32 Quincy Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will bring the three museums and their collections together under one roof for the first time, inviting students, faculty, scholars, and the public into one of the world’s great institutions for arts scholarship and research.
Don Tuski, president of the Maine College of Art (left) with Dan Crewe, brother of Bob Crewe and a college trustee since 2011The Maine College of Art in Portland has accepted a $3 million gift from the Bob Crewe Foundation to develop a new program that focuses on the study of contemporary music and its relation to visual art. This transformational gift will support an innovative field of study in honor of the internationally known musician, artist, and entrepreneur, Bob Crewe, while supporting students from a wide range of backgrounds wishing to pursue a career in music, art, or both.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has launched MetCollects, a new series on the museum’s website that offers first looks at recently acquired works of art. MetCollects will feature one work each month, selected from the hundreds that the Metropolitan Museum acquires through gifts and purchases annually. The series will also pair spectacular photography with curatorial commentary, often including video for further contextualization of the works.
Michigan State University in East Lansing has received a $5 million gift from the art collectors Eli and Edythe Broad to increase the endowment for and to help fund exhibitions at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum for the next five years.
The Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program have formed a unique partnership to provide innovative, collaborative-style teaching across two new graduate programs at the college: an MA in art and social engagement and an MFA in community practice. The new graduate programs are expected to launch in 2015 and will help Moore establish itself as the region’s educational center for community arts practice.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in Texas has received a $2,500 award from the International Fine Print Dealers Association to fund a curatorial internship in museum print collections.
The RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence has accepted a $2,500 award from the International Fine Print Dealers Association to fund a curatorial internship in museum print collections.
The University of Iowa Museum of Art in Iowa City has been given a $2,500 award from the International Fine Print Dealers Association to fund a curatorial internship in museum print collections.
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond has announced that it will break ground on a new Institute of Contemporary Art, an exhibition and performance space, laboratory, and incubator for the presentation of visual art, theater, music, dance, and film by nationally and internationally recognized artists, in June 2014.
Yale University Press, based in New Haven, Connecticut, has accepted the thirty-fifth George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award from the Art Librarians Society of North America for Interaction of Color by Josef Albers (App for iPad), published in 2013.
Two Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Awards for Spring 2014
posted Jun 17, 2014
CAA is pleased to announce the two recipients of the Meiss/Mellon Author’s Book Award for spring 2014. Thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, CAA is supporting the work of emerging authors who are publishing monographs on the history of art and related subjects.
The spring 2014 grant recipients are:
- Sonal Khullar, Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity, and Modernism in India, 1930–1990, University of California Press
- Pepper Stetler, Stop Reading! Look! Modern Vision and the Weimar Photographic Book, University of Michigan Press
The purpose of the Meiss/Mellon subventions is to reduce the financial burden that authors carry when acquiring images for publication, including licensing and reproduction fees for both print and online publications. Authors must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information. Deadline for the fall 2014 grant cycle: September 15, 2014.
Spring 2014 Grants from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund
posted Jun 16, 2014
This spring, CAA awarded grants to the publishers of eight books in art history and visual culture through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, CAA gives these grants to support the publication of scholarly books in art history and related fields.
The grantees for spring 2014 are:
- Una Roman D’Elia, Raphael’s Ostrich, Pennsylvania State University Press
- Sonal Khullar, Worldly Affiliations: Artistic Practice, National Identity, and Modernism in India, 1930–1990, University of California Press
- Elizabeth Kindall, Geo-Narratives of a Filial Son: The Paintings and Travel Diaries of Huang Xiangjian (1609–1673), Harvard University Asia Center
- Vered Maimon, The Photographic Imagination: Talbot and the Conception of Photography in the Early 19th Century, University of Minnesota Press
- Pepper Stetler, Stop Reading! Look! Modern Vision and the Weimar Photographic Book, University of Michigan Press
- Erik Thunø, The Apse Mosaic in Early Medieval Rome, Cambridge University Press
- Jason Weems, Barnstorming the Prairies: Aerial Vision and Modernity in Rural America, 1920–1940, University of Minnesota Press
- Marnin Young, Later Realism and the Politics of Time, Yale University Press
Books eligible for Meiss grants must already be under contract with a publisher and on a subject in the visual arts or art history. Authors must be current CAA members. Please review the application guidelines for more information. Deadline for the fall 2014 grant cycle: September 15, 2014.
Grants, Awards, and Honors
posted Jun 15, 2014
CAA recognizes its members for their professional achievements, be it a grant, fellowship, residency, book prize, honorary degree, or related award.
Grants, Awards, and Honors is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Susan Bee, Autumn Fantasy, 2011, oil on linen, 18 x 14 in. Collection of Leslee Smoke (artwork © Susan Bee)Susan Bee, a painter and writer based in New York, has received a 2014 fellowship in fine arts from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Doris Chon, a lecturer in the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been named Harald Szeemann Research Project Postdoctoral Fellow by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. From September 2014 to June 2016 she will work on “Museum Mythologies: Harald Szeemann’s Museums by Artists, the Museum of Obsessions, and the Legacy of Institutional Critique.”
Denise Rae Costanzo, assistant professor in the H. Campbell and Eleanor R. Stuckeman
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, has been awarded the 2014–15 Marian and Andrew Heiskell Postdoctoral Rome Prize in modern Italian studies.
Michelle H. Craig, an independent scholar of African and Islamic art who is based in Mansfield Center, Connecticut, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship via the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. From September 2014 to July 2015, she will work on “Across Desert Sands: Trans-Saharan Visual Culture.”
Nathan S. Dennis, a PhD candidate in the history of art at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, has won the 2014–15 Paul Mellon/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Predoctoral Rome Prize in ancient studies.
Yvonne Elet, an assistant professor of art history at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, has earned a 2013–14 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for her project, “Materiality and Metamorphosis: Stucco in the Architecture and Decoration of Early Modern Europe.”
Sandra Erbacher, an MFA student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has accepted the 2014 Chazen Museum Prize, offered annually by the Chazen Museum of Art in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin’s Art Department.
Wayne Franits, professor of art history at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, has received a grant from the American Philosophical Society that will enable him to conduct research in London for his current project concerning Godfried Schalcken’s English period.
John Craig Freeman has been awarded an Art +Technology grant from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. Freeman will draw on crowdsourcing, augmented reality, and electroencephalography (EEG) technology for a project titled Things We Have Lost.
Elina Gertsman has won the 2014 John Nicholas Brown Prize from the Medieval Academy of America for her book, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, Performance (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010). Established in 1978, the prize is awarded annually for a first book or monograph on a medieval subject judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality.
Christopher H. Hallett, professor and chair of the Department of History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley, has been selected as a 2014–15 Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. He will be in residence at the Getty Villa in Malibu from September to December 2014 to work on “The ‘Archaic Revival’ of Augustan Rome: Primitivism in the Art and Monuments of Rome, 30–20 BCE.”
Gregory Halpern, a photographer and assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, has earned a 2014 fellowship in photography from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Taro Hattori, an artist and lecturer based in San Francisco, California, has been awarded a 2014 residency from Omi International Arts Center, based in Ghent, New York.
Pablo Helguera, an artist and director of adult and academic education at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, has been named a 2014 ABOG Fellow for Socially Engaged Art by the Manhattan-based organization A Blade of Grass.
Jessica L. HortonJessica L. Horton has been recognized as a 2014–15 National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. She will be in residence at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian, both in Washington, DC, to work on “Global Histories of Native American Art” from September 2014 to July 2015.
Jeanette Kohl, associate professor of art history at the University of California, Riverside, has become a 2014–15 Getty Scholar. While at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from September to December 2014, she will work on “Global Faces: Heteronomies and the Afterlife of Renaissance Portraiture.”
Jason Lazarus, an artist, curator, writer, and educator based in Chicago, Illinois, has received a 2014 grant from the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation. As part of the award, he participated in the Wynn Newhouse Awards Exhibition this past spring.
Sean Villareal Leatherbury, a specialist in Roman, late antique, and Byzantine art and archaeology who earned a PhD from the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, has accepted a 2014–15 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. He will work on “The Arts of Votive Dedication from Rome to Byzantium” at the Getty Villa in Malibu from September 2014 to June 2015.
Julia Orell from the Section for East Asian Art History in the Department of Art History at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, has been named a 2014–15 Postdoctoral Fellow by the Getty Research Institute, based in Los Angeles, California. Her project, “Shifting the Boundaries of Art History: East Asian Art History in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland ca. 1840–1940,” will be worked on from September 2014 to June 2015.
John K. Papadopoulos, professor and chair of the Interdepartmental Archaeology Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been selected to be a 2014–15 Guest Scholar and Consortium Professor at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California, from January to June 2015. His research, currently taking the form of a project titled “The Archaeological Context of Value,” focuses on Aegean prehistory and Greek and Italian archaeology, as well as the history and culture of the Classical and later periods.
David RaskinDavid Raskin, chair of Department of Sculpture and professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, has been appointed a fellow in the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney in Australia for spring 2015.
Kristin E. Romberg, assistant professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has been selected for a 2014–15 Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. She will work on “Radical Constructivism: Aleksei Gan’s Grass-Roots Modernism” from September 2014 to June 2015.
Susan Sidlauskas, professor of art history at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has been named a 2014 fellow in fine arts research by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Larry A. Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History in the Department of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, has been appointed a 2014–15 Guest Scholar by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. From January to June 2015, Silver will work on “Jewish Art as Marked.”
Joanna S. Smith, associate professional specialist in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, has become a 2014–15 Getty Scholar, thanks to the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. She will work on her project, “Seal Stratigraphies from Enkomi, Cyprus,” at the Getty Villa in Malibu from April to June 2015.
Jenni Sorkin, assistant professor of history of art and architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has received a 2013–14 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies for her project, “Live Form: Women, Ceramics, and Community, 1945–1975.”
Allison Nicole Stielau, a PhD candidate in the Department of History of Art at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has accepted a 2014–15 Predoctoral Fellowship from the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. She will research “The Unmaking of Metalwork in Early Modern Europe” while at the Getty from September 2014 to June 2015.
Kathleen Tahk, a graduate student in art history at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has earned a Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources from the Council on Library and Information Resources. Tahk’s project is called “A Revolution beyond Borders: The Soviet Art of the Latvian Rifleman, 1917–1938.”
Exhibitions Curated by CAA Members
posted Jun 15, 2014
Check out details on recent shows organized by CAA members who are also curators.
Exhibitions Curated by CAA Members is published every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Mary Forbes. This Is the Life. Art Car Museum, Houston, Texas, March 15–June 8, 2014.
Peter Demos, Untitled, 2014, acrylic on dyed canvas, 60 x 30 in. (artwork © Peter Demos)Katarina Lanfranco. Elusive Abstraction. Rhombus Space, Brooklyn, New York, May 2–25, 2014.
Don Fritz, Ground Zero, mixed media on paper, 36 x 24 in. (artwork © Don Fritz)Katarina Lanfranco. Thought Bubbles. Rhombus Space, Brooklyn, New York, March 28–April 27, 2014.
Future Buddha Maitreya Flanked by the Eighth Dalai Lama and His Tutor, Tibet, 1793–94. Norton Simon Art Foundation (artwork in the public domain)Melody Rod-ari. In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas. Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, March 28–August 25, 2014.
Books Published by CAA Members
posted Jun 15, 2014
Publishing a book is a major milestone for artists and scholars—browse a list of recent titles below.
Books Published by CAA Members appears every two months: in February, April, June, August, October, and December. To learn more about submitting a listing, please follow the instructions on the main Member News page.
June 2014
Samantha Baskind. Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014).
Kate Bonansinga. Curating at the Edge: Artists Respond to the U.S./Mexico Border (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014).
Deborah Jenner and Malou L’Héritier, eds. Espace mondialisation (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2013).
Edward J. Olszewski. Parmigiano’s “Madonna of the Long Neck”: A Grace beyond the Reach of Art (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2014).
John Ott. Manufacturing the Modern Patron in Victorian California: Cultural Philanthropy, Industrial Capital, and Social Authority (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014).
Donald Preziosi. Art, Religion, Amnesia: The Enchantments of Credulity (New York: Routledge, 2013).
David Levi Strauss. Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow: Essays on the Present and Future of Photography (New York: Aperture, 2014).
Jane Chu Confirmed as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
posted Jun 12, 2014
This afternoon, the United States Senate voted to confirm Jane Chu as the 11th chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. The White House is expected to make the official appointment in the coming days and Chu will begin her appointment shortly thereafter.
Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa has served as the agency’s acting chairman and executive since Rocco Landesman left the NEA in December 2012.
Jane Chu said, “I’m honored to receive the Senate’s vote of confirmation, and I look forward to serving our nation as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Together, we have the opportunity to show the value of connecting the arts to all Americans, and the importance of the arts in bringing communities together.”
United States Senator Claire McCaskill (Mo.) said, “I have no doubt that Jane will make Missouri proud. She’s spent years enriching the culture and strengthening the business community in Kansas City, and I’m looking forward to seeing her bring that same leadership to the national stage.”
“I’m glad the Senate confirmed Dr. Chu’s nomination as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts today,” said United States Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.). “I was impressed by her successful oversight of the more than $400 million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts project and I enjoyed visiting with her in Kansas City several weeks ago. I have no doubt Dr. Chu will serve as a valuable asset to the NEA.”
Jane Chu will be available for media interviews following her appointment and arrival at the NEA. Those interested in scheduling an interview should send an email to publicaffairs@arts.gov or call 202-682-5570.
Please join the conversation and offer your congratulations to Jane Chu with #NEAJaneChu.
About Jane Chu
Since 2006, Jane Chu served as the president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, overseeing a $413-million campaign to build the center. As the performance home of the Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Symphony, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Kauffman Center has hosted more than one million people from all 50 states and countries throughout the world since its grand opening in September 2011.
She was a fund executive at the Kauffman Fund for Kansas City from 2004 to 2006, and vice president of external relations for Union Station Kansas City from 2002 to 2004. Previously, she was vice president of community investment for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation from 1997 to 2002. Chu also served as a trustee at William Jewell College and on the board of directors of the Ewing Marion Kauffman School and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
Chu was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, but was raised in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She studied music growing up, eventually receiving bachelor’s degrees in piano performance and music education from Ouachita Baptist University and master’s degrees in music and piano pedagogy from Southern Methodist University. Additionally, Chu holds a master’s degree in business administration from Rockhurst University and a PhD in philanthropic studies from Indiana University, as well as an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.
News from the Art and Academic Worlds
posted Jun 11, 2014
Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.
Ten of the Most Influential MFA Programs in the World
Artspace Magazine has tallied up the top ten master of fine arts programs in the world. While they may not be the cheapest avenues into the art world, these are, without a doubt, the top-ranked MFA programs for art students looking to add a gold star to the top of their CVs—and to build a ladder into the gallery sphere. Of course, there’s no “silver bullet” for instant postgraduate success. But there are certain programs that tend to spark the interest of curators, critics, and collectors alike. (Read more from Artspace Magazine.)
A Community of Artists: Radical Pedagogy at CalArts, 1969–72
A painter, a composer, a drama scholar, two directors, and two radical social scientists sat down at a table in 1969 to plot the future of the California Institute of the Arts. These were CalArts’ first administrators, and the challenge before them—and before the faculty they’d recruited for each of their departments or “schools” of art, film, theater/dance, music, design, and critical studies—was to actualize Walt Disney’s vision of bringing all of the arts together in one institution of higher learning, resulting in “a kind of cross-pollination that [would] bring out the best in its students.” (Read more from East of Borneo.)
Five-Year Plan
Criticizing humanities doctoral programs is easy. They take too long, they continue to emphasize training for tenure-track faculty positions in an era when such positions are scarce, they encourage the book model of dissertation at a time when books are hard to publish, even full funding isn’t always “full”—the list goes on. Solving the PhD predicament is much harder, but that’s what the Modern Language Association is attempting to do, or at least start to do, in a new report. (Read more from Inside Higher Ed.)
Are Lectures on the Way Out? Harvard Professor Proposes a Better Way to Teach
A teacher standing lecturing before a group of students is a form of human interaction that stretches back at least a millennium and a half. The roles are clear: the teacher with the knowledge tells the students who lack it everything they need to know. The teacher projects, the students absorb. The teacher speaks, the students listen. But just because it’s been that way for a long time doesn’t mean it’s the best way to teach. (Read more from Radio Boston.)
The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom
A colleague of mine in the Department of Computer Science at Dartmouth College recently sent an email to all of us on the faculty. The subject line read: “Ban computers in the classroom?” The note that followed was one sentence long: “I finally saw the light today and propose we ban the use of laptops in class.” While the sentiment in my colleague’s email was familiar, the source was surprising: it came from someone teaching a programming class, where computers are absolutely integral to learning and teaching. Surprise turned to something approaching shock when, in successive emails, I saw that his opinion was shared by many others in the department. (Read more from the New Yorker.)
New Legislation Would Protect Art Authenticators against “Nuisance” Lawsuits
Following decisions by the Keith Haring Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the estates of Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat to disband their authentication boards, the New York State legislature has introduced a bill to make lawsuits against art authenticators more difficult to win and to punish “nuisance” lawsuits. (Read more from Gallerist.)
The Case for Old-Fashioned Connoisseurship
Suddenly, connoisseurship seems to matter again. It always mattered to me personally, as someone who earns a living sniffing out misattributed pictures. But now interest is growing on a wider level and, amazingly, even among academic art historians. I’m asked to speak about it often, most recently at a conference at the Paul Mellon Centre in London. The pendulum is at last swinging away from the “authorship doesn’t matter” brigade. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
We Don’t Need the “New” Connoisseurs
There has lately been some dark talk in certain corners of the British art world about a crisis in connoisseurship and the need to revive traditional scholarship. The debate at the Paul Mellon Centre last month was, I imagine, intended to expose such murmurings to greater scrutiny and test their merits and demerits in a reasoned and open way. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)
Why Connoisseurship Matters
I recently went to speak at a Paul Mellon Centre conference on connoisseurship, called “Connoisseurship Now.” I was asked to be polemical—not usually a problem for me—and was paired in a session with Tate Britain’s lead curator for British art pre-1800, Martin Myrone, which was good fun, as I like him, and he’s decidedly skeptical about the point of connoisseurship, and even more so about those who practice it. (Read more from Art History News.)